Dar Williams

I Had No Right

Dar Williams' most recent album is Emerald.

Williams wrote this song to commemorate Daniel Berrigan's resistance to the Vietnam War. Berrigan was a Jesuit priest who, along with eight other Catholic activists, burned draft files to protest the war. Of the incident, Berrigan wrote, "Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children..." He was sentenced to three years in prison.

Lyrics

God of the poor man this is how the day began
Eight co defendants, I, Daniel Berrigan
Oh and only a layman's batch of napalm
We pulled the draft files out
We burned them in the parking lot
Better the files than the bodies of children
I had no right but for the love of you
I had no right but for the love of you
Many roads led here, walked with the suffering
Tom in Guatemala, Phillip in New Orleans
Oh it's a long road from law to justice
I went to Vietnam, I went for peace
They dropped their bombs
Right where my government knew I would be
I had no right but for the love of you
I had no right but for the love of you
And all my country saw
Were priests who broke the law
First it was question, then it was a mission
How to be American, how to be a Christian
Oh if their law is their cross and the cross is burning
The love of you
The love of you
God of the just I'll never win a peace prize
Falling like Jesus
Now let the jury rise
Oh it's all of us versus all that paper
They took the only way they know who is on trial today
Deliver us unto each other, I pray
I had no right but for the love of you
And every trial I stood, I stood for you
Eyes on the trial
Eight a.m. arrival
Hands on the Bible